Literature · Database
Europe PMC
A life sciences literature repository providing access to millions of full-text articles, citations and preprints.
What Europe PMC is
Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) is an open-access repository containing millions of biomedical and life sciences research publications. Originally established in 2007 as UK PubMed Central, the resource was rebranded in November 2012. It provides researchers with access to full-text articles, citations, and preprints, addressing the challenge of discovering and accessing biomedical research findings across journals and repositories.
The platform is managed and developed by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) on behalf of an alliance of 27 biomedical and life sciences research funders, led by the Wellcome Trust. Partner funders mandate that research supported by them be deposited in Europe PMC and made freely accessible within six months of publication.
Europe PMC also incorporates CiteXplore, which was integrated into the platform in February 2013, and forms part of the PMC International network of repositories dedicated to the preservation of open biomedical literature.
How it is organised
Europe PMC mirrors most of its content from PubMed Central, which manages the deposit of complete books and journals, though Europe PMC includes custom features not found in a direct mirror. In addition to mirrored content, researchers can self-deposit peer-reviewed manuscripts through a dedicated submission system called Europe PMC plus.
The repository applies text mining to create marked-up text within articles that links directly to external molecular and medical datasets. It also indexes funding information through a Grant Lookup facility that monitors research awards granted by member organisations.
Key facts
- Launch date
- 2007 (as UK PubMed Central; renamed 1 November 2012)
- Total citations
- Over 43.3 million
- Full-text articles
- More than 9.3 million
- Supporting funders
- 27 organisations led by the Wellcome Trust
- Indexed grants
- Over 101,900 grants
- Content types
- Full-text articles, citations, preprints, and books
What you can use it for
- Literature discovery and text mining
- Scientists can query full-text life sciences papers and preprints, using marked-up text to navigate directly to linked molecular and medical data.
- Grant and funding tracking
- Researchers and administrators can use the Grant Lookup facility to search details across more than 101,900 grants funded by Europe PMC partner organisations.
- Funder mandate compliance
- Funded investigators can self-deposit peer-reviewed papers via Europe PMC plus to satisfy funder requirements for open-access availability within six months.
Query it here
The research agent queries Europe PMC directly — no account, no API key — and every answer links back to the record it came from. Ask in plain language and it writes the query.
Strengths and limits
Good at
- Provides free access to more than 9.3 million full-text research articles and over 43.3 million citations.
- Enriches scientific text with automated mining links pointing directly to external medical and molecular databases.
- Offers a dedicated submission tool, Europe PMC plus, allowing researchers to self-deposit their peer-reviewed work.
Watch out for
- Relies primarily on mirrored content from PubMed Central rather than acquiring all published biomedical literature independently.
- Full-text content is smaller than the total citation index, covering over 9.3 million of the more than 43.3 million citations listed.
Questions
Can I search Europe PMC without writing code?
Yes. The research agent queries Europe PMC directly, with no account or API key, and cites the record behind every answer. Ask in plain language — for a gene, a protein, a compound or a study — and it builds the query for you.
Can I reuse data from Europe PMC?
Metadata CC0; full text under each article's own licence. Only the open-access subset is redistributable; abstract metadata always is. Terms: https://europepmc.org/Copyright
What is the difference between Europe PMC and PubMed Central?
Europe PMC is an independent member of the PMC International network that mirrors most PubMed Central content, but it has developed distinct features such as integration with European funding databases and text-mined links to external data.
How can researchers deposit their own papers?
Scientists can submit peer-reviewed manuscripts directly for inclusion in the repository using the Europe PMC plus submission system.
What content does Europe PMC index?
It indexes biomedical and life sciences research, including full-text articles, preprints, books, citations, and metadata for over 101,900 research grants.
Written from Europe PMC's own website and reference material. Statements citing a figure that does not appear there are removed before publication. Licence and running details come from our registry.